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Localization and Translation: Snake Oil and Silver Bullets

Get Localization is a company with a long background in mobile development. Actually we first started Get Localization as a side project to support our own product localization. In total, we have tens of years of experience on both mobile development and localization.

There’s a lot of discussion in communities about situation of indie developers. Some people are offering localization and translation as a “turnkey solution” for high downloads.

We want to make it clear that localization is not a silver bullet to success. If you localize your moderate app, it still will be a moderate app. But it’s also good to understand that your amazing app will be an utter crap app if it’s localized badly. Why is that?

First of all, people often think localization is a marketing effort. Well sometimes it is but it’s not the full story.

It’s about making your application’s user experience (UX) better.

It’s like optimizing taps and clicks to achieve a smoother experience for the user. If your app is localized badly, it is hard for the user to navigate through it. When it’s localized well, your app feels much easier to use. This means that if you decide to localize, you need to commit to it and consider it as a long-term investment.

But is it worth it? You can experience this yourself. Ask your friend to turn your phone language to Chinese or Japanese and try to navigate to switch the language back. Not so easy? Well that is how majority of people feel when they download your app in plain English.

As a developer you are supposed to make your users feel good so they recommend your app to their friends. This is why you localize your apps, to provide best possible experience to your users.

In this business, return on investment unfortunately doesn’t come instantly. There is no such silver bullet. It just requires a lot of hard work – sometimes years – to be an overnight success.